He didn’t meet up with any Apache war parties on their side of the river as he worked his way south through timber and chaparral. The reservation line doglegged far off to the west this far south, and he suspected the Jicarilla were more worried about pindah lickoyee than vice versa about now.
Well before dawn he recrossed the Chama to get back on that coach road and follow it north. He didn’t want to go back to see Consuela, despite fond memories of her rollicking tawny rump. He knew the trail town of Camino Viejo stood by the river just to the southwest of La Mesa de los Viejos.
You just about had to pass close by to get to the old Indian pathway up to those canyonlands, and all in all, he figured it might be best if folks recalled him coming from the south instead of the scene of that dumb gunplay to the north.
As the sunrise caught him still in the saddle, Longarm peeled off his denim jacket and put that away with the green shirt to ride into town outstandingly rosy from the gunbelt up.
He wasn’t too surprised to see that despite its Spanish name the town, handy to more than one trail, was far more Anglo than Mexican. There was always Mexican or Indian hired help in any New Mexican town for the same reasons the shoe-shine boys and street sweepers tended to be colored east of Austin. But neither Mexicans nor Indians with money to pick and choose seemed to cotton to Camino Viejo, situated as it was between an Apache reserve and a heap of haunted ghost towns.
He left the two bays in an Anglo-run livery near the Western Union. He didn’t have anything new to wire anyone, and he hadn’t told anyone to wire him here in Camino Viejo. So he idly traced the single line of telegraph wire east against the morning sky for as far as he could tell, then took himself and his Winchester to breakfast at the hotel dining room recommended by the livery hands.
There were always a few late risers having breakfast at seven in the morning. So Longarm knew the blandly pretty waitress answered to Trisha before she came over to take his order. He’d already read the blackboard on the wall, the place not being prissy enough to hand out printed literature, and said, “Them waffles with scrambled eggs and sausages sound tempting, Miss Trisha. But could I have mine with chili con carne instead of syrup over ‘em?”
The slender dishwater blonde told him it was his funeral. Then, just as she was fixing to take his order to the kitchen, she turned back to him with a puzzled smile and asked, “Do I know you, Mister…?”
“My friends call me Henry,” Longarm lied, figuring drunk or sober he’d be able to recall the clerk who played the typewriter for Billy Vail. He didn’t push his luck by insisting he’d met Trisha before. But she suddenly smiled—it was a great improvement in her looks—and said, “Oh, sure, I remember that dark cavalry hat and mustache now. You told us you’d fought those rebs at Apache Canyon during the war, last time you passed through with that big market drive.”
He neither confirmed nor denied her accusation. He liked to ask trick questions too. So she lit out for the kitchen to fetch him his substantial if unusual breakfast.
He was enjoying it, his Winchester across his lap, when a couple of new customers came in, dressed cow and covered with dust. They gave Longarm a long look and took a corner table. When Trisha came out to ask what they wanted, Longarm politely waited until she’d taken their order before he called out, “Hold on, Miss Trisha. The next time you get a chance could I have me some cream for this coffee?”
She nodded easily and said, “Sure you can. But I thought you said before you cottoned to it black, Henry.”
The strange riders exchanged glances as Longarm smiled sheepishly and said, “You’ve made it stronger than usual this morning, no offense.”
The waitress didn’t seem to care one way or the other. A short spell later she’d fetched him a can of condensed milk and served the two others their white bread and beans with black coffee. Longarm was glad the coffee really was brewed strong, the way he liked it.
The other two would have doubtless finished their lighter breakfasts ahead of him in any case. But Longarm gave them plenty of time by ordering a slab of cheesecake and more coffee to go with his after-breakfast smoke. So they and some of the other customers had left, and Longarm was about to, when he heard the waitress hissing like she’d cut herself, and turned to see a burly young cuss in bib overalls had her by one wrist and didn’t seem to want to let go as he grinned up at her like a shit-eating hound.
Longarm knew better. He’d just ridden out of one dumb scrape with an aspiring desperado, and gals who didn’t want assholes falling in love with them had no business waiting tables. But when Trisha sobbed, “Damn it, Alvin, you’re hurting me!” Longarm just naturally found himself saying, “Stop hurting her, Alvin.”
The burly lout let go of the gal’s skinny wrist, but rose to his own considerable height as he scowled Longarm’s way and demanded, “Were you talking to me, cowboy?”
The question hardly deserved an answer, but Longarm had just found out how dumb it could be to call a scowling asshole an asshole. So he kept his own voice mild as he replied, “Somebody had to. Trisha, why don’t you go rustle up more coffee for me and Alvin whilst we have us a word in private?”
The pallid blonde pleaded, “Please don’t have a fight in here, boys. It could mean my job!”
Then Longarm got to his own feet and, seeing how tall he rose, Trisha sobbed, “Oh, Dear Lord!” and tore out of the room.
Alvin was looking itchy-footed too as he stared down at the saddle gun in Longarm’s big fist and the.44-40 on his hip, saying, “Hold on, Mister Henry. I ain’t armed and it ain’t as if I really hurt your gal, right?”
Longarm moved over to the heavier man’s table, scaring the shit out of old Alvin but smiling pleasantly enough as he explained, “I knew all the time you were only funning, Alvin. But you’re a man of the world. So you can surely see the fix the two of us poor innocent gents are in. You know how gals expect a man to stick up for them when they let out a holler. You know you’d have had to call me, no matter how you really felt, had I been teasing your own gal, right?”
Alvin suddenly grinned boyishly and said, “Say no more, Hank. I didn’t know the gal was spoken for and if it’s all the same with you, I’d rather just drop the matter than fight over a gal who’d only call me a big bully if I won!”
Longarm laughed and asked, “Lord have mercy, has that happened to you too?”
So they were shaking on it when Trisha and the cook risked a peek through the kitchen doors. But she never came out till her burly admirer had left, leaving a handsome dime on the table instead of the usual nickel.
